Explanation
The alimentary canal of ruminants, such as cattle, goats, sheep, alpacas and antelope, is unable to produce the enzymes required to break down the cellulose and hemicellulose of plant matter. Accordingly, these animals have developed a symbiotic relationship with a wide range of microbes, which largely reside in the reticulorumen, and which are able to synthesize the requisite enzymes. The reticulorumen thus hosts a microbial fermentation which yields products (mainly volatile fatty acids and microbial protein), which the ruminant is able to digest and absorb. This allows digestion of less edible plants.
Read more about this topic: Cud
Famous quotes containing the word explanation:
“Young children constantly invent new explanations to account for complex processes. And since their inventions change from week to week, furnishing the “correct” explanation is not quite so important as conveying a willingness to discuss the subject. Become an “askable parent.””
—Ruth Formanek (20th century)
“My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing—suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)